The moving parts of an engine, transmission, or other component of a vehicle, such as a car, need to be lubricated with a lubricant such as oil to reduce friction between the moving parts and thus reduce the amount of work needed to keep the component operational. The amount of friction in such a component is largely dependent on the lubrication system, the choice of lubricant, and the lubricant temperature. In particular, the viscosity of a lubricant tends to decrease as its temperature rises, resulting in reduced friction, and so it is desirable that the lubricant is kept at a relatively high temperature during use.
During shutdown periods when a vehicle component is not operational, heat in the component and lubricant is dissipated to the surroundings. Therefore, when the vehicle is started and the component becomes operational once more, there is an increased frictional load for the component's moving parts to overcome until the lubricant is heated back to an optimal operating temperature. Efforts have therefore been made to reduce the amount of heat loss to the surroundings during vehicle shutdown.
It is known to provide insulation on a vehicle component or other part of the vehicle to try to retain heat within the component and lubricant during vehicle shutdown periods so that any subsequent restart of the vehicle is more efficient because of reduced friction. For example, insulation panels or an insulating layer may be shaped to correspond to an exterior surface of a vehicle component and then applied directly to the surface. This type of insulation may generally be termed ‘component-mounted’: for example, if the insulation panels are applied to an engine exterior surface then this is termed ‘engine-mounted’. As the arrangements of such components may be of relatively complex shape, this can make manufacturing such engine-mounted insulation relatively difficult and expensive, and may compromise the heat retention and noise attenuation functionality of the insulation. Alternatively, insulation may be applied at a distance from an exterior vehicle component, for example on a bonnet liner, side panel, undertray or active grille shutter of the vehicle body, and this is termed ‘body-mounted’ insulation. This type of insulation is disadvantageous in that it can be challenging to maintain adequate sealing to guard against leakage via gaps in the vehicle body and the need to deal with dispersion of heat throughout the area in the vicinity of a component, for example throughout an engine compartment.
It is an aim of the present invention to address disadvantages associated with the prior art.